Hey, it's all natural...

Beijing, China

Sunday, March 14, 2010

I love Chinese food better than any other cuisine in the world. Nonetheless, there are still foods that can surprise me when I see them for sale in the markets. I am still not quite sure what these are, but here are three things I think I know: 1) these are insects of some kind, 2) they were moving in the tray, and 3) the vendor recommended deep-frying them, whatever they are...

Size: 2 inches (5 cm) long

Two bakers in a window

Beijing, China

Sunday, March 14, 2010

These two women decorating cakes in a store front window reminded me of my Mom who grew up in a bakery family in Cleveland.

Beijing haircut

Beijing, China

Sunday, March 14, 2010

My students begged for a few hours of shopping while we were in Beijing this weekend. So, while they headed out in pairs for an hour, I set out in search of a hair salon. After wandering for a while, I eventually found a salon and got a decent haircut.

Fortunately, it was NOT at the establishment pictured at right.

BEIMUN 2010

Beijing, China
Friday, March 12, 2010

I am Bejing for four days to chaperone my students during the Beijing Model United Nations.

This trip is a special opportunity for me--seeing these 1000 freshly scrubbed young people all dressed up and ready to debate the biggest questions of our time makes me hopeful in a way I haven't felt in a long time. There was also a very inspiring soil scientist who spoke about some of the re-vegetation projects being sponsored in China. The images of the improvements in 10 years' time took my breath away. This guy comes to Mongolia (environmental degredation, yes!) often, and I am going to write to him and ask him to visit our school to talk about his work.

The 18 year-old Assistant Secretary General (a Korean student attending an international school in Beijing) implored the delegates to "choose passion over conformity" when considering their career choices in the face of the world's challenges.

I wanted to stand up and cheer. It's NOT true what they say about young people...

...and some things stay the same

Beijing, China

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Twenty-eight years after I first came to Beijing, it is comforting to see that some things are still the same. Enormous physical, economic, and social changes have come to China over the past three decades, but in this short weekend in Beijing I was able to observe at least two similarities with the past: 1) folks still crowd in to have their pictures taken in front of Mao's picture at the Forbidden City and 2) in a country with a less-enforceable-than-ever one-child policy, twins are still as precious as ever.

Some things change...

Beijing, China

Sunday, March 7, 2010

My first trip to Beijing was in 1982, which is so long ago that I can hardly remember what the city looked like. But I can remember the smell of the unfiltered Chinese cigarettes like it was yesterday. It's a horrible, choking smell.

Great, then, was my delight to see this sign posted in the first restaurant I went into this weekend. (The "Beijing Patriotic Health Campaign Committee" definitely sounds like a throwback to older days, though.)

Yes, Beijing looks incredibly different than it did 28 years ago, but other things are different, too.

Beijing bastu

Beijing, China

Sunday, March 7, 2010

I know they still exist: the old fashioned, somewhat dreary hotels we first stayed in when we came to China in 1982. But the place we stayed in on this trip to Beijing was a far, far cry from those places. To my astonishment, there was even a lovely sauna (bastu) downstairs in the hotel's Health Club. It came complete with a Finnish water ladle for putting water on the hot rocks.